The U.S. has finally approved its first coronavirus vaccine and began dosing some of the most at-risk people, including health care workers, on Monday.
But the supply of Pfizer’s vaccine is scarce. The firm shipped out just 2.9 million doses, beginning over the weekend.
The rollout of coronavirus vaccines will have many stages and is the most massive vaccination campaign ever undertaken in the U.S.
DailyMail.com breaks down what will happen next.
Health care workers are among the first to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in the US – but younger, healthy people who don’t work on the front lines could be waiting months
WHAT VACCINES ARE AVAILABLE NOW AND WHY CAN’T EVERYONE GET THAT WANTS ONE GET ONE?
As of Monday, the COVID-19 vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech is the first and only one approved for use in the U.S – but more are on the way.
Regulators on Friday gave it the emergency green light for inoculating any one 16 or older.
Over the weekend, the first round of the shots were shipped out to all 50 states.
By Monday morning, just after 9am ET, the first American to ever get a COVID-19 jab outside a clinical trial, an ICU nurse named Sandra Lindsay, was vaccinated in New York.
Most other states have also administered their first doses.
But they will probably run out in the coming weeks, governors told Operation Warp Speed, so only select groups of people are eligible to get the shot in this first wave or vaccinations, dubbed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) phase 1A.
WHO CAN GET VACCINATED THIS YEAR, AND WHEN WILL MORE SHOTS BE AVAILABLE TO MORE PEOPLE?
On December 1, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted on who should be the top priority groups for vaccination in the U.S.
The group of experts decided that it is most important to vaccinate health care workers and residents of nursing homes or other long-term care facilities where at-risk people tend to live in very densely packed conditions.
Health care workers are exposed over and over to coronavirus. If too many of them get sick, not only does that mean more COVID-19 cases and people who can potentially spread the disease, it means fewer professionals able to care for other coronavirus patients.
That is a quick recipe for a health care system overwhelmed by the disease.
So the group agreed that health care workers on the front lines of the battle against COVID-19 need to be protected as early as possible.
Equally, they voted that people living in congregate settings need to be protected, especially elderly people with weak immune systems.
People in nursing homes will probably start receiving vaccines at the end of this week, and large programs marked by partnerships between CVS and Walgreens and nursing homes will help fuel widespread vaccination of nursing home patients.
They are expected to begin in earnest on December 21, with Pfizer’s vaccine, and December 28 with Moderna’s vaccine.
But each state can decide if it wants to follow those exact recommendations.
So, for example some states will let prisoners get vaccines in the first wave to prevent massive prison outbreaks.
The goal is to get about 40 million of the most at-risk people vaccinated as soon as possible.
WHO CAN GET A COVID-19 SHOT IN THE NEXT WAVE THAT STARTS AFTER THE NEW YEAR?
The CDC hasn’t decided yet.
Its expert committee will meet again on December 18 to decide who should be in the next round of vaccinations.
They are considering recommending people 70 and over or 60 and over, as well as non-health care essential workers.
People in each of these groups are at high-risk either because of their ages, or because they cannot work from home and are in jobs that require them to be exposed over and over to other people who may have coronavirus.
CDC experts could also recommend the next doses go to people with underlying health conditions like heart disease and diabetes who are more likely to get severely ill or die of COVID-19.
Vaccinations for these groups will most likely start in February, but could launch as early as January.
WHO WILL GET VACCINES LATER, AND WHEN?
Dr Anthony Fauci estimates that a health, average American will be able to get a COVID-19 vaccine by late March or early April.
People 50 and over could be in a separate next wave or lumped together with younger people in general.
Although the vaccine is approved for people 16 and older, and Pfizer and most other vaccine-makers are testing their shots in children, kids are at low risk of getting severely ill and don’t seem to spread the disease as much as adults.
So the youngest Americans will be among the last vaccinated.
There isn’t much data on how pregnant women respond to Pfizer’s vaccine, but scientists are continuing to study how they fare.
In the meantime, U.S. doctors recommend that pregnant women choose for themselves whether they get vaccinated or not.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says that U.S. women should not be prohibited from getting the vaccine.
WHAT ABOUT OTHER SHOTS?
On Thursday, December 17, the FDA will have a hearing about Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine.
Just as was the case with Pfizer’s vaccine, the FDA is expected to approve Moderna’s vaccine the following day, Friday, December 18.
Its rollout is expected to follow the same timeline as Pfizer’s, with deliveries over the weekend, and vaccinations beginning on Monday.
AstraZeneca said Monday that it would likely be able to apply for emergency approval.
Johnson & Johnson’s trial was delayed after reports of potentially dangerous side effects.
Trials have resumed, but the company has not given a date when they think they will seek approval.